Syllabus

Course Goals and Objectives:

Students will experiment and gain experience in many different writing genres. These genres will include memoirs, poetry, short stories, and other narrative writing. We will use journals in this class to stimulate creative thinking and as a great source for ideas, and will write everyday! We will analyze many published and student works as examples of diverse styles and themes as well as work on editing skills, revision skills, and peer critiquing skills.

Materials Required:

Personal blog set up through Blogger. 

Grading:

Grades on creative assignments will be determined by effort, improvement, and quality as well as adherence to instructions and correct use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Graded Assignments will include:                                                

Ø  Short writing assignments                                                     

Ø  Homework/classwork                                                            

Ø  Analyses of literary works                                                     

Ø  Major writing assignments   

Ø  Journal           

Ø  Class participation
FINAL PORTFOLIO AT END OF THE SEMESTER IS 50% OF SEMESTER GRADE.

Policies and Procedures

Classroom Rules

Ø  Be Respectful towards yourself, your classmates, and the teacher

Ø  Be seated and ready to learn when the bell rings. Passes will not be given to retrieve forgotten materials.

Ø  I will follow the school’s tardy policy.

Classroom Procedures

Ø  Take care of personal business between classes.

Ø  I do not accept late work! Assignments are due when I ask for them in class. Any assignment turned in after this is considered late.

Ø  You will have the same number of days to turn in makeup work as you were absent.   Work cannot be done weeks after the fact.

Ø  If you were absent the day before a previously announced test, you are expected to take the test when you return. Make up work will only be accepted if your absence was excused.

Ø  Cheating is not acceptable. I expect you to do your own work on all assignments.  Cheating will result in a zero on the assignment and contact with parents.

Journals

Translating our thoughts and feelings into words and sentences takes practice. Often writing can help us clarify our emotions and focus our thoughts. By writing we open windows into ourselves. Journal entries are also great resources for topics for other writing assignments. For all these reasons you will be writing journals this semester approximately three times a week. In order to be graded, they MUST be tagged as #journal and MUST have correct title.

Minimum length= 10 lines                 Each entry= 5points